Gold Lairian

If I'm correct @Xandria buys meat at a local bucher. She made a thread about raw food and what to think about. @Xandria, @Catzzzmeow or @admin can one of you place the link to the raw food of xandria here? Thanks!

Yes, human food can be purchased unfrozen but raw pet food must be frozen. The key is that when meat thaws, that's when bacteria begins to grow. Now human food is meant to be cooked and cooking kills any bacteria, so it's fine to buy the meat from the refrigerated section in your grocery store, cook it and eat it. However, food that is to be eaten raw should be kept frozen until you are ready to use it. This is why you aren't supposed to buy food at the grocery store to feed raw to pets. Butcher shops are better for sourcing frozen meat.

In addition, pet food includes organs and bones. Well some diets do not include bone but then you must add calcium. If the point is to feed natural, ancestral diet, etc., then to me it just makes sense to include bones and not some non-animal calcium supplement. That said, I'm afraid of the choking risk with bones so I only feed ground food and the bones are ground right in. It's very important to get the right proportion of calcium to phosphorus so that means the right amount of bone and meat.

In addition to butcher shops, you can also buy from local farmers or distributors. The thing is you have to know exactly what you need. Check out the website perfectlyrawsome.com for help in putting together your diet.

Gold Lairian

I'm not sure exactly where you live, but here in Vancouver we have what I call "Mootiques" (butcher boutique shops that have ridiculously high prices). What I have done is found the source of their meats and by directly from the distributor, which is much cheaper. I purchased by the case, so there is an extra discount.

Definitely experiment 1st. Different proteins, different recipes, and resources such as perfectlyrawsome.com (which I am totally going to add to my guide).And of course, don't be afraid to ask any questions here.

Speaking of which, @Condo commando – Have you come across any other really helpful websites such as the aforementioned? I would definitely love to keep adding to my little guidebook.

V.I.P Lairian

Haha well that confirms it was good decision to put it in! For better or worse, that's the only resource I know where they will help you come up with a customized feeding plan and shopping list. For $85 I would have done it if it existed back when I started out. However, I did a phone consultation with Dr. Pierson.

I agree with you - if you can buy the meat from a distributor you probably get a better price because the butcher has to buy it from the distributor in order to sell it to you, so you cut out one middleman. Distributors sell by the case so be prepared to buy in bulk.

Lairian

Thanks for the replies. We already are buying from a distributor for the main stock. Just picked up a new order this weekend. I was asking because we were slow to order that batch and had to supplement for a few days with local, pre-packaged stuff. I got the Primal RAW FROZEN FELINE BEEF & SALMON FORMULA nuggets. If we need to buy Primal again I think we will do the RAW FROZEN GRIND BEEF FORMULA because those ingredients are closer to his usual mix. Uber did well enough with it, although he didn't lick the shine off the plate like he did with his other food. Maybe he doesn't like the fish as much? And we also noticed that it wasn't as wet as the grind mixture we usually feed. He then suddenly puked it up last night. We are almost certain it was because it was served too cold. That particular batch didn't defrost all the way and we tried to warm it up with hot water but didn't warm it up enough I suppose.

He had breakfast of his usual food this morning and was so happy to have his familiar menu back! I do want to have a good back up plan just in case we don't order in time again.

I'll be checking out Perfectly Rawsome for more info. I am fairly certain we won't be switching away from the grind mix method. But it does look like good general knowledge about raw! I'll have to see what info I can find about if switching a couple of grandma kitties over to raw would be a good idea even though it probably won't happen. But I do like to learn!

Lairian

I got to the local butcher I was talking about. They do have pet food mixes (chicken or beef) plus things like ox tail and chicken backs. They also have exotic meats! Uber is going to try a couple pounds of the beef mix so hopefully it does well for him. It seems like a better fit and much cheaper too! I was able to have a nice chat with one of the head ladies. Coming in on a weekday afternoon was world's different than Saturday! I mentioned that we do have a main distributor but I do want to supplement random parts to help with oral health. What do your guys eat to help their teeth?